Interviews

The Matrix Online - Shades of Green

We sit down with the people responsible for MxO's visuals and get the skinny on the green world they've created.

The look of The Matrix -- everything from the manic dynamics of its "wire-fu" combat, to the patented shiny leather outfits of its characters -- is something that is embedded deep in most of our minds, at this point. Recreating that look in a single-player game would be difficult enough. Compound that with the challenge of realizing a living world in this image, with thousands of unique inhabitants, and, well ... you could see how The Matrix Online's art team would have their work cut out for them.

We had a sit-down with the heads responsible for all this, and from what we can tell, their heads are in the right place. We won't know how well it all turned out till the masses flood into the servers, but if the product in any way matches their efforts, then things should be cool. Read on.

GameSpy: What steps were taken to ensure that MxO's look would be in tune with The Matrix as a franchise, while at the same time preserving players' ability to make their characters look distinct?

Jeff Miller (Lead Character Artist): The movie heroes were easily identified by their trademark black leather outfits, which is fine when you have a handful of characters on screen, but in our game, there will be thousands of redpills running around the world. Black leather only gets you so far. The most important theme in The Matrix movies is freedom of choice, and we want to convey that message in our game, especially in terms of character appearance. We did spend many hours checking out the latest fashion design, looking for inspiration.

Andy Hoyos (Art Director): Naturally, we had access to much of the production photography and conceptuals that were produced for the movies, and therefore had a great marker and point of reference from which to design. However, it was not our goal to try and imitate the movie-going experience in an MMO, but rather to expand on a number of the stylistc boundaries set by the film makers.

The fashion choices were some of the most fun aspects of the MxO gameplay experience that we needed to expand upon. Trinity's glossy, vinyl outfits, and Neo's near-floorlength coats and sunglasses were just the beginning of what turned out to be a phenomenal array of wardrobe choices presented to the player (not seen in the films).

Myself, and the character development crew, spent many nights perusing fashion magazines and websites for just the right inspiration that would drive the creative imagining of the clothing choices. Once we put together the fashion choices that we felt would have the desired impact, we would send them off to be approved by the brothers. More often than not these choices were approved. However, when the the brothers felt we had strayed a bit from the Matrix style, we could count on their advice to steer us to the correct creative path, giving us the guidance to pull off and maintain the Matrix look and feel that we've all come to know and love.

GameSpy: What role does licensed apparel play in the game?

Jeff Miller: MMOs are still in their infancy when it comes to tapping real-world resources. With The Matrix Online, we wanted to blur the line between the real world and game world more than any other MMO to date. I was surprised to find how much The Matrix movies had influenced real-world fashion. It seemed only natural to take advantage of that fact, by merging licensed apparel into the game.

Andy Hoyos: The extremely cool fashions which we saw in the movies had to represent only a small fraction of what we wanted for player's choices to experience. The vast majority of player apparel choices are, of course, "unlicensed" clothing. However, the licensed apparel helped us to expand upon what it means to "live the Matrix style" -- and were very cool additions to the established wardrobe choices.